


Moments: Name

by haganenoheichou



Series: Moments (Eruri Week 2014) [5]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Day Five: Distance/Separation, Eruri Week 2014, M/M, eruri - Freeform, no more titans, post!SNK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 05:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3107000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/haganenoheichou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day Five of Eruri Week 2014: Distance/Separation. My take on what happens with our favorite couple when the Titans are all gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments: Name

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your great responses to my previous stories. This one is also short, but it's special to me because the idea was provided by the Commander to my Corporal, the Danchou to my Heichou, the love of my life, my amazing boyfriend who not only tolerates my incessant shipping but encourages it :)

“I guess this is goodbye.”

Levi spun around on the spot, his hands flying to his belt only to find that his blades were no longer there. Of course. He felt light without the equipment, a defenseless, naked feeling that did not sit well with him. He hated being so vulnerable, even though he had witnessed first-hand that the threat had now passed. He had ensured it.

There were no more Titans.

No more Survey Corps.

Former Survey Corps Commander Erwin Smith stepped into the stables, his blue eyes a dark violet in the dim light. Levi had not bothered lighting the torches: he knew the stables in and out like the back of his own hand. Turning back to his horse, he said nothing. He heard Erwin approach from behind and tensed with every step the man made. He didn’t want to talk about this. Talking about this would mean to finalize it.

“When are you leaving?” Erwin asked quietly, his voice barely a whisper. “Tell me whether this is really goodbye.”

“It is,” the former Corporal responded unwillingly. “I set out at dawn.”

“I see.” Levi scraped the brush over his horse’s neck silently. “You don’t want to stay and–,”

“Join the Military Police with you? Eyebrows, let’s be serious. I’ll get sacked on the first day.”

“You haven’t called me that in years.”

“I know. Even though your eyebrows have only gotten bigger. I think they’re starting to take over your face.”

Levi heard a quiet chuckle behind him. He put down the brush and finally turned to face Erwin. But it wasn’t really Erwin Smith now, was it? The man before him looked years younger than Erwin Smith. The burden of rescuing humanity from the Titans had been lifted off his shoulders and he had finally bloomed into all he had been set out to become. Standing tall, his hair parted neatly, his new Military Police uniform pressed impeccably, Erwin Smith was a new man. Levi hated it. He felt like he’d only gotten smaller, sallower, with the extinction of the Titans. That was the difference between the two of them, he supposed. Erwin had lived to eradicate the Titans. Levi had lived to fight them.

“So what are they making you do?” Levi asked quietly. “Locking you up for more paperwork?”

“Perhaps.” The bolo tie was notoriously absent from Erwin’s neck, now a relic displayed at the newly inaugurated Titan Struggle museum within the Inner Wall. “I’m in charge of hunting down especially dangerous criminals.”

“I guess you should arrest me then,” Levi said. Erwin gave him an amused look. “Desertion. Worst crime of all. I feel like I am deserting.”

“There is no more war,” Erwin pointed out, and his words struck an unpleasant chord. “There is nothing to fight anymore.”

“There is always something to fight,” Levi replied. “But I guess my war is over.”

“What are you going to do?” Erwin asked, his tone hopeful. As if Levi would leave him an address to write letters. As if he would visit Levi at his new place of residence. The former Corporal sighed.

“I guess I’ll just see where the road takes me. I’ll just… set out East and go.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“I envy your freedom sometimes, Levi.”

The Corporal winced at Erwin’s use of his name.

“That’s not my name.”

“I though you’d accepted it.”

“I borrowed it. Now it’s time to give it back.”

“So what do you want to be called now?”

“Nothing. I told you, I don’t like having a name. And wherever I’m going, I’m going alone. So why would I need a name, with nobody to say it?” He asked quietly, watching Erwin’s face sag. It’s not that he hated the name. But the name was no longer who he was. The name had been his job. His job was now over. Hence, the young man no longer needed a name.

“To be remembered. You saved many lives, Levi.”

“Please, Erwin. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“So, you admit that this is difficult for you?”

“Of course it’s fucking difficult!” Levi exploded, landing a well-aimed kick to the bucket at his feet. Erwin watched him seethe silently before leaning against the door of the stall.

“I’m sorry the Titans are gone.”

Levi let out a shrill laugh.

“You must think I’m insane.”

“I think you’re insane, but not for the reason you suppose. You are insane because you are the only one who’s saying it out loud.” Levi looked up at his former Commander sharply. “We all miss the Titans.”

“We’re fucked up.”

“That’s what war does, Levi.”

“Stop it. Just…”

“I don’t understand you. You want to detach yourself from your past, and yet it was the only thing that made you happy.”

“It didn’t make me happy. It kept me going.”

“Exactly. So why reject it?”

“Because nobody needs me anymore. I no longer serve a function, Erwin. And you might think that you do, with your fancy new uniform and shit, but you have to face it: nobody wants us anymore. We are relics. We belong in that fucking museum. So I guess I chose to go gracefully instead of sniveling at the feet of the very same people who sent us to die without so much as a thank you time and again.”

“You think I like humiliating myself, Levi?” Erwin asked. “I don’t. But, as opposed to what you think, I still believe we can make a difference in society. By doing other things.”

“I’ll believe that when you stop waking up from nightmares every night, kicking and screaming. When we all do,” Levi replied. “We are done.”

“Levi–,”

“We are done.” Levi sighed. “If they insist on putting something embarrassing like a portrait in that museum of theirs, make sure it doesn’t have a name.”

“Levi–,”

“Do me this favor. If you want that name to be remembered, then it should be remembered by those who were involved in making it.”

Erwin pursed his lips. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

Levi glanced out the window. “It’s almost dawn.”

“It is.” Erwin stepped forward, repeating what he’d said earlier. “So, I guess this is goodbye.”

“Yes.” Levi nodded. He untied his horse and led him out of the stall slowly, feeling Erwin’s comforting presence at his shoulder as he went outside, the vast expanse of the universe opening up before him, unhindered by the giant walls. He was free to go wherever he chose. His chest tightened at the lie.

Erwin helped Levi climb up onto the horse’s back, and the former Corporal glared at him. “I am not a child.”

“I know that. I just…”

“You always liked babying me.” Levi let out a low chuckle. “You should get a brat of your own.”

He looked towards the horizon and then turned his horse so that he was facing his Commander on the ground. His lungs feeling as if they were on fire, his throat burning with things unsaid, he snapped his right fist to the left side of his chest, his other arm behind him.

He didn’t see Erwin return the salute, as he galloped towards the red horizon, eyes stinging with the bite of the cold spring wind.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a line at http://hellofaheichou.tumblr.com


End file.
